When Hope Fades
by Mewgia Mirrorcoat
Summary: AU Survival of Hope Alternate Ending. What if they failed? Four years later, as everything goes wrong and the worlds are in chaos, what has become of everyone?


Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon.

A/N: So, to be completely honest this is based off of something that I thought up on what would happen if in 02, everything went wrong. And this was thought up back when I started Survival of Hope. And really, if things went badly in that story, this is what would have happened... very, very dark. Regarding Kari, I went off of the Japanese version and well... yeah. I'd look it up if you want to make sense of what's going on in the second segment. The entire thing takes place four years after Survival of Hope.

I am depressed now.

I'll go back to writing Survival and what _actually _happens towards the end, which is much nicer than the following.

* * *

When Hope Fades

The sounds of explosions were the only thing that reached him. He was barely aware that he was on hard ground, wind rushing over him in waves as heat and debris flew over him; he thought he heard someone shout, but the boom of an attack drowned it out. There was a splintering feeling in his shoulder, and everything else just felt numb with shock, as though he were somehow not quite present in this world of chaos surrounding him.

A familiar voice hit sharply against the battle noise. "Matt! Matt, get up, we have to retreat now!"

His body didn't want to respond, but he knew he had to. With a desperate pull to the present, he opened his eyes and tried to move.

Tai's face blurred into his vision, covered in grime and slightly panicked. "Come on Matt, you'll be fine, you're going to pull through," he was saying, more rambling than anything as he strained to pull Matt from the wreckage. "Halsemon is waiting for us, we're getting out of here.

Matt grimaced as he kicked away what had once been a wooden beam, and used his legs to propel himself out. Everything still felt so numb and surreal, it was difficult for him grasp onto everything around him... another crash, and explosion, the shouts of attacks –

"Wargreymon is covering us, come on Matt, we can make it," Tai was speaking again, draping one of Matt's arms around his shoulder and helping his friend to his feet.

Matt was barely able to keep up with Tai's hasty steps to escape, his mind only on a few things that were most immediate.

"Where's Ken?" he rasped out, limping along. "He was with me before that attack..."

Tai's face paled. "He was with you?" he barely breathed out. "Oh shit, so that was who..."

Matt felt his heart stop. "What do you mean, what happened?"

Tai tried to move him along faster, looking away. "Daemon. Daemon got to him."

Instantly, his mind became a blur of images. He had sworn to protect everyone else with his life, he could not lose another person, not since the failure of that attack on the tower four years earlier, and now for it to be one of the younger generation... then figures swam across his sight, a brown-haired girl diving into a sea of black, the last time he had seen her... and a young, tall boy with blond hair fading away as the darkness took hold of him, forcing him into that hellish otherworld...

_No... not again..._

An anguished scream cut through the air as a dark energy rippled across them, a wave of searing cold that threatened to twist and constrict anything it came across. Matt found himself collapsing, unable to withstand it until Tai stepped in the path of the wave, shielding him. Matt stared in horror as Tai held for a few moments before letting out a cry, falling to his knees as he gasped; but by then the energy had lessened, swirling around them and back towards its source.

Matt saw Halsemon on the ground from far away, crouched down as though protecting someone from the wave. He saw a flash of purple hair, smiling slightly to know that at least someone else had made it through. Tai was busy trying to breathe, panting as he supported himself on the ground.

"What the hell was that?!" he exclaimed, glaring in the general direction of the source of the wave.

"I don't know…" Matt replied, gazing in the same direction, trying to make sense of it.

Another chilling scream pierced through, but this time Matt knew where it was from. Yolei was staring in shock at something, frozen as though it were her worst nightmare standing before her. It was only as Tai helped Matt to his feet and they started forward again that saw the demonic cloaked digimon standing there, and a figure they never thought they would see again.

_That hair... the glasses... that's... no..._

Yolei gave another scream that her voice broke over. "NO! KEN!!"

"The darkness..." he murmured softly, which he knew Tai had heard despite showing no sign of it. He too was too busy staring in horror, unable to come to terms with what had just happened.

_The darkness... it's too strong... no, this war can't end here... Ken, we'll..._

The Digimon Emperor strode forward as though he had never left.

Tai's yelled out in urgency. "Yolei, get out of there!"

_The darkness is taking over everything... with Daemon here... Dragomon in the other realm..._

Yolei was motionless as she stared at their friend, now transformed back into the last thing he had wanted to return to being. Tai was screaming at her to move, but she was in a daze, unable to accept the truth...

A shot rang out. The Digimon Emperor clutched his hand in pain; Yolei seemed to awaken as Halsemon stood, shouting at her to mount. Matt saw a familiar red-haired boy pointing his gun, now running back through the streets as another one of the Spawn morphed and went after him; he saw wings approaching, Tai shouting, and everything just became another blur as fatigue and pain overcame his body, and –

_This is what the world has become. What do we do now?_

_

* * *

  
_

She felt like she was in a dream.

She often had no idea what she was doing, or where she was, only that everything she had once stood for existed only in her body and her heart, while the opposing forces had enwrapped themselves around her. The creatures bowed to her, and she regally continued on her way, barely aware of her surroundings except for the cold darkness and the feeling of wetness everywhere.

She would see the one she knew as Lord, and bow to him, her body obeying while something in the back of her mind raged; she would lie motionless as the Lord of the realm had his way, as now she lived only for his sake, to please his desires and to act in her duty beside him.

It was only in those rare moments when she suddenly felt lucid, that she realized what she really was, a prisoner and a slave. She screamed for freedom, for someone's help, for anyone... but no one came. They couldn't.

And Dragomon would not stop.

She would see her brother, and suddenly know of the danger and horrors he and her other friends were in. They were fighting to stop the darkness, and here she was, enslaved to it; where was the light now, the hope, everything they had once fought for? She once cried, but it did nothing; no tears could save the one now lost, or save her from her fate.

And she knew that Dragomon would only continue, then order for the deaths of the prisoners taken, and she was helpless, unable to do a thing. She wanted nothing more now than freedom from this shackled life, to stand free in the world of light, to end this taint of the corrupted darkness that now bled freely between all the connected worlds, but then her power was constrained, and...

Her true mind would fade away, as she disappeared back into the depths of the dark waters that encompassed her and penetrated her being.

It was a fate that Kari knew was worse than death.

* * *

Above the raging waters that brimmed with a tainted holy power, a single soul screamed at the world for all the injustice, for the despair left over by the ritual, for what had become of everything. He screamed for his friends, for the fate of the Child of Light, for the loss of partners, for the ongoing war; yet he was all that was left, remnants, feelings, the last piece of what had once been a vibrant, living person.

He wanted vengeance, but he could do nothing. The power of the ocean had pulled everything away, using it for its own purposes as Dragomon strengthened by the day; the darkness flowed everywhere, into the fabric of the worlds.

Despite everything, he still had that bare hope that the world would regain itself, that Light would overcome the darkness, that in the otherworld Courage, Friendship, and everything else would one day push the corrupted darkness away. The rest of him thought it a futile hope.

Feelings, rage, vengeance, despair, helplessness... faded hope...

His last scream barely echoed over the roar of the waves.


End file.
